


Do It Again

by ArtemisWalsh



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, idk if I'm gonna expand beyond this chapter but we'll see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 21:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17352956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisWalsh/pseuds/ArtemisWalsh
Summary: The battle begins. The battle ends. Aloy wakes up the day before the battle.So often does this cycle repeats that the Nora girl can sense how the world works, and how to manipulate the flow of time.





	Do It Again

**Author's Note:**

> My roommate was watching me play HZD and was like "I'd love to imagine how the characters would handle New Game Plus and Aloy starting the game with this late game gear" and it devolved into me writing about her achieving semi-cognizance that she's in a video game

Aloy never woke up to victory. The sun rose and set on HADES’ carcass, on the charred and ash-choked Meridian, on the torn-up bodies and chassis that littered the valley. The mesa always escaped harm, the fires always devastated the river port, and she and her allies always won the day. This happened six times now, enough for Aloy to work out its boundaries.

This did not seem to be a product of GAIA. Even the most powerful creation of the Old Ones had no answer to the flow of time. Nor, when she asked, did the Carja priests have any stories about time being reversed. Nor could she remember of a story where All-Mother did such a thing. For all she could find, no man or machine had an answer to the day she could never finish.

Moreover, no one else in Meridian seemed aware of this. When she asked Talanah or Vanasha or Avad about the battle won and undone, they seemed oblivious to her questions. Nothing could shake them from the notion that the battle at the Spire had never yet happened but was fast approaching. The river port still flowed with water and goods, boats and people. The turn of the moon seemed to wash away the damage and death from these prosperous docks.

On the seventh night-before-the-battle, Aloy could not sleep. She searched within her senses and her mind for a feeling, some tangible or noticeable sense that she could identify as the one, the source of the great reversal. But nothing met her, and her eyes drifted to a close, once again without answers.

The battle went as it always did. Collapsing mesa. Exploding cannons. Burning docks. HADES at the Spire. Aloy could barely summon joy or enthusiasm as she followed the actions like a routine, trying to save as many lives as she could in the process. She could not die in this battle; that had already been attempted. Destiny had hijacked this conflict and forced her all the way to the end. And now here she stood, atop the mesa with victory once again in hand.

“We did it!” Varl exclaimed, thrusting his spear in the air.

Erend placed a hand on her shoulder. “You saved Meridian, Aloy.”

She mustered a smile. “Thanks, Erend. We saved Meridian…and the whole world.”

“Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I just…the sounds and the flames…the shouting…I think I need to find somewhere quiet.”

He nodded. “I’ll let people know. You deserve some rest, Aloy.”

Yes. Rest.

Rest.

Was that the key? The day had always ended with her slumber, only to awake before the battle. Maybe tonight, not the night before, she could feel the flow of time grinding to a halt and reversing.

She made her way back to the burning villages, the forefront of the fighting. The oncoming rain was putting out fires, but many still burned, and none of the houses seemed in a position to shelter a young woman trying to sleep. But yet one was barely intact. The fire only covered the outside; the inside seemed still held together. With a sigh, Aloy climbed into the bed and laid her head down.

Her eyelids drifted down, her heart beat slower and slower, all the currents of the air slowed until it hung frozen. Aloy slowly raised her hand, not wanting to disturb her descent into rest, until it was poised over her face. With a sigh, and an inhale, she closed her eyes. Just as her heartbeat ceased, her hand fell and smacked her. Her eyes rushed open and her muscles tightened and she felt a change in the space around her. No sound came from outside the cabin. No sound…she forced her aching legs to support her as she left the bed to stand in the doorway.

The rain did not fall. It stayed.

The rain stayed in its place.

She almost fell over. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work. Rain did not stand still in the air like hanging chimes. Rain did not wait for her hand to move through it to remember it was water and therefore fell. But not only the rain seemed to have frozen in place, as Aloy looked around her. Figures of people in motion and sculptures of fires blazing adorned the scene around her. From person to person, they showed no sign of life or movement in their eyes or bodies. She could raise the arms and twist the hands and close the eyes. Not once did her new puppets react.

Aloy recoiled from this new activity. It was wrong. Surely time would start again and these people would react. Surely the flow of time itself was not entirely within her control. Surely this could be undone—

She breathed in. Thought of snow on the cabin in the Embrace and of the taste of rabbit. She breathed out. Thought of the sound of a river running and the smell of fresh fire smoke. This was not the first shattering revelation. She knew how to cope. Slowly, with control and awareness, she spread out her arms. They collided with the floating raindrops. Her fingers opened and closed, wrapping around empty air. And yet, a feeling overtook her body like the vibrations of a string instrument. Her hands moved through thick air, not unlike water. A distinct rumble shook her arms, but she stayed firm. Seizing whatever forces she now found herself in the midst of, Aloy breathed in several more times, calmed herself with thoughts of the cabin, and slammed her hands together.

 

 


End file.
